Body Heat
During a particularly intensive Florida heatwave, Ned Racine (William Hurt), an inept and rather sleazy lawyer, begins an affair with Matty (Kathleen Turner), wife of Edmund Walker (Richard Crenna), a wealthy businessman.
They go to great lengths to keep their affair a secret, though there are incidents like Racine making advances to a woman he thought was Matty but turns out to be Mary Ann Simpson (Kim Zimmer), one of her old school friends; and Matty being caught performing oral sex on Racine by Edmund's adolescent niece Heather (Carola McGuinness). Racine even gets to meet Edmund himself when he comes across the Walkers by chance in a restaurant.
Matty soon makes it clear that she wants to leave Edmund but also wants his money. A prenuptial agreement means that in the event of a divorce she will be left with only a small fraction of his fortune. Racine, who is just as selfish and greedy, agrees that the only option is to kill Edmund.
Planning the murder, Racine consults one of his shadier clients, Teddy Lewis (Mickey Rourke), an expert on incendiary devices. Lewis tries to talk him out of it and reminds Racine of some advice that Racine gave to him in the past: "Anytime you try a decent crime, there is fifty ways to fuck up. If you think of twenty-five of them you're a genius — and you're no genius." Lewis can't talk Racine out of it and continues to show him how to use the incendiary device that he intends to use for the crime.
Edmund's will leaves half his fortune to his niece Heather, daughter of his sister Roz Kraft (Lanna Saunders). Matty dislikes this arrangement and tries to convince Racine to do something about it, but he blocks her suggestions on the grounds that nothing suspicious must happen in Edmund's life in the days leading up to his death.
Racine establishes an alibi at a Miami hotel and then proceeds to the Walker estate where he kills Edmund. He then drops the body in an abandoned seaside business called The Breakers which Edmund was known to be involved with and destroys it with an incendiary device in order to make it look like an arson job gone wrong.
Some time after his victim's death has been officially declared, Racine is contacted by Edmund's lawyer Miles Hardin (Michael M. Ryan) who raises the matter of a will that Racine is supposed to have drawn up on Edmund's behalf and was witnessed by Matty's friend Mary Ann Simpson. Racine did no such thing but has to play along in order to avoid suspicion. This supposed new will again leaves half the estate to Heather but has been so badly prepared that it is now legally null and void and means that Matty, as the wife of the deceased, is to get all the money.
Matty later admits to Racine that she forged the will, inspired by a similar incident that she got to know about while working in a lawyer's office in Chicago. Racine is annoyed by this since it means that there will be suspicions about Edmund's death and indeed Roz starts to pressure the police into making more in-depth inquiries into the case. She even takes Heather to the police station to tell about her seeing Aunt Matty and some man. Heather meets Racine but fails to recognize him and when interviewed can only describe the man's penis.
Racine no longer makes secret his affair with Matty, though he claims that it has only recently begun. His friends, police Detective Oscar Grace (J.A. Preston) and Assistant Prosecutor Peter Lowenstein (Ted Danson), warn him to stay away from her. They also reveal that Edmund's glasses, which he always wore, are missing. If he had been wearing them at the time of the explosion they would have stuck to his face but are in fact nowhere to be found. Matty herself denies any knowledge about where they are. Mary Ann Simpson has also disappeared, having supposedly left the country after witnessing the new will which Matty forged.
Already annoyed by the issues of the will, the glasses and the suspicions of the police, Racine experiences more events that cause him to doubt Matty's loyalty to him. Quite by chance he meets Michael Glenn (Thom Sharp) from a firm of lawyers who once sued him over a mishandled legal case. Glenn reveals that to make up for that he recommended Racine to Matty Walker, long before Racine himself ever met her.
Teddy Lewis is arrested on a separate charge. While in custody, he reveals to Racine that some "broad" came to him and bought another incendiary device and that he showed her how to set it to explode when opening a door. Lowenstein also warns Racine that Grace is making enquiries into his movements on the night of the murder. It seems that some stranger kept making phone calls to Racine's hotel room on the night in question but never got an answer.
Matty calls Racine to tell him that the glasses were found by her housekeeper who, in exchange for some money, has agreed to return them to the boathouse on the Walker estate. At her prompting Racine goes to the boathouse late at night but through the window he spots Lewis' second incendiary device, hooked to the door.
When Matty turns up, Racine confronts her at gunpoint. She admits to first meeting him on purpose but claims to now really love him. He tells her to prove it by going to the boathouse and getting the glasses. She does so and the building explodes in the presence of Racine and Grace who was looking for him, having obtained enough evidence for an arrest.
A body is found in the remains of the boathouse and identified through dental records in Chicago as Matty Walker (ne Tyler). Edmund's money cannot be found. Now in prison, Racine becomes convinced that Matty is in fact still alive. The woman he knew as Matty had a shady past: she once admitted to Racine that she had taken drugs. She therefore assumed the identity of Matty Tyler, an old school acquaintance, in order to marry Edmund Walker and get his money. The real Matty Tyler, the woman Racine knew as Mary Ann, discovered this and played along, presumably in exchange for some of the money, but was then murdered and left in the boathouse. Had he been killed by opening the boathouse, the police would have closed the case, since both suspects would have been dead.
Matty had told him that she studied at Wheaton High School in Illinois. Racine writes to the school asking for the yearbook for when she left. The book is mailed to his prison cell and confirms his suspicion that Matty Tyler and Mary Ann Simpson, known as the "Vamp" at school, switched identities.
The film ends with the woman Racine knew as Matty, but who was really Mary Ann Simpson, fulfilling her ambition as stated in the yearbook: being "rich and [living] in an exotic land".
